http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1164/onepiececollabbyathenacjp2.jpg (http://athena-chan.deviantart.com/art/One-Piece-Collab-94186570)
the essence of cool

Hey guys! Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth for a while. I guess it was a combo of things including getting some school stuff done, starting and running through a couple American TV shows, and watching/reading a lot more political coverage lately. Anyway, I’m glad to be back in the game again and glad to see that people stepped in to review. The pics in the review come from the Binktopia scanlations and the title pic is a beautiful piece done by Athena-chan (http://athena-chan.deviantart.com/) in collaboration with -casey (http://-casey.deviantart.com/) on Deviant art, so check out their galleries.

Going back a few chapters to 509, the CP9 cover arc was left with Bleuno noticing some commotion in the background as some people made a report to some police officers. It is now revealed that this was due to an incident at the harbor. The Candy pirates have arrived and are starting a pillaging raid. As is common with the common traditional pirates in the series, Oda grants them a ridiculous theme that makes them memorable. In this case, the pirates decorate their heads with pieces that resemble large, plastic-wrapped hard candies. The situation is meant to resemble a type of case that the CP9 would have normally handled. That is a hostage situation in which they would normally slay the pirates covertly. In most cover arcs, the idea is to show a villain overcome a flaw and use his ability to help a society. For the CP9, the arc is meant to show them that justice can be served without death. We have already seen that they have started to value life and friendship as they went out of their way to save Lucci and create new and fun lives for themselves on Saint Popla. Now it seems they have found a way to make themselves useful. They rush right in and start beating the crap out of the pirates with Lucci leading the charge and Kumadori and Kalifa following suit in the frontal assault. As of the latest chapter, it has escalated to the CP9 storming the ship and taking out the entire crew with the islanders cheering them on. Their lives as assassins led them to fight deceptively and out of the public eye but they are now fighting in such an open manner that they will likely be named as heroes by the townspeople. With their former professions being a warped form of justice, it seems clear that their new roles will be to exact true justice. Together with their physical capabilities, this pegs them for some sort of protector role such as law enforcement or a royal guard (if the isle’s title of “Spring Queen” is to be taken literally). It seems a bit less grand than how other cover arcs have ended, but since they are still being hunted by the government, something small is likely a better choice for them.

510: Strawhat Pirates vs Combat Weapon

Apoo’s Flight

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Run away!

As we left things last chapter, Apoo had finally entered the fray in the fight against Kizaru. Using his music based devil fruit powers, he unleashed the first apparently successful offensive of the fight, first cutting off the admiral’s arm and then exploding him. Now Kizaru is apparently torn in half at the torso by the blast and Apoo celebrates his success. However, the other three remaining participants in the fight, Drake, Hawkins, and the pacifista remain quiet as they know Kizaru is far from dead. Hawkins has just faced Kizaru in combat and knows him to be fast enough to avoid that damage if he wanted. Also, his precognition has surely told him that Kizaru is not dead. Drake has history with Kizaru and thus knows the details of Kizaru’s powers. From this he knows that even this amount of damage is nothing for the man. Even Apoo admits that he does not believe Kizaru to be dead. He tends to be impulsive and takes things for granted though. He knows that at his level, he couldn’t have dealt a fatal blow to an admiral, but assumes that the attack was at least enough to facilitate an escape without even considering how a person could survive being separated at the waist. His only concern was that he wanted to leave a mark in the battle before hauling ass. Even though he knew beforehand that Kizaru was beyond him, his biggest concern is making his name known. He decided not to run because then his name wouldn’t be mentioned in the battle but decided not to fight because he’d likely loose. All he needed was to find the ideal moment to sneak an attack in on the admiral. That way, he’d get a bit of recognition for being the first to land a blow on him in this battle. Having done that, he is very pleased with himself and finally runs off to join his crew, no longer paying no attention to the fallen marine.

Luminescence

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don't look into the light

As Kizaru’s torso returns to the legs in beams of light, it becomes clear that Kizaru is indeed a light logia obtained from the pika pika no mi as revealed officially in the next chapter. Using a technique called Yata no Kagami, he generates a wide beam of light from his hands and reflects it off of windows nearby to create a path directly to Apoo. He is then able to transport his physical body directly along that beam of light to basically teleport to the pirate and deliver a finishing kick. From there, he instantly flashes down to Drake and kicks him through a building before his former ally can blink. To finish things off, he fires one of his lasers through Hawkins. The revelation of him being a light logia brings up a number of issues. Since Blackbeard was revealed to have the darkness logia, it was easy to assume that a light logia existed, but it was unclear if it would be a typical logia similar to the generic elementals or if it would be seen as a counterpart to the darkness fruit. It seems that it is the former and he is truly an incarnation of light that can’t be touched physically. For most intents and purposes, this could be seen as the strongest devil fruit ability. The normal logia traits provide an automatic defense, the speed of light gives him the greatest mobility and combat speed of any known fighter, and the light can be focused to a destructive form as a laser. Add to that combat experience comparably equal to Ao Kiji and Kizaru is truly the Marines’ ultimate fighting force. However, there is a flaw in his ability. His beams of light used for both movement and lasers are used in straight lines. In order to travel at angles, Kizaru needs reflective surfaces to bounce light off of. Though other logia lack the speed of movement he has, they are not hampered by direction of movement. This means that his ability can be foiled by interrupting the path of light. This could be done with mirrors to intercept and diverge his attacks, but I think it is more likely that mist will be the key. In a mist such as fog or steam, light dissipates and is thus ideal for halting Kizaru. For a logia to prevent physical damage, it must be able to retain its true elemental form. Water clumps sand particles and rubber prevents electric current, thus halting the abilities of Crocodile and Enel. For light, dissipation through a mist would serve the same purpose as it prevents the passage of light. This would not only hamper Kizaru’s movement but it would also nullify his logia defense. With this in mind, my first thought is that Luffy’s Gear 2 generates steam, but I doubt it creates enough to affect Kizaru. It does mean that defeating an admiral at this point is not out of the question though.

Contact Made

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what is the OP idiot count up to now?

While preparing a second laser to finish off Hawkins, Kizaru receives a call on his den den mushi, causing him to ignore Hawkins. He answers the call as Borsalino, which is his true name, showing that he prefers an informal relationship with people. Kizaru is a title bestowed on him as admiral, but he still prefers going by his true name. the person on the other end of the call is a very frustrated Sentoumaru. He starts yelling at Kizaru for not calling him only to find out that the admiral had idiotically been trying to call from a line meant only for intercepting other calls and not for transmission. Sentoumaru tells him that the intended targets are Luffy, Kidd, and Law. The other targets should be ignored as they are not a priority. It seems that by simply aiding the Strawhats in the aftermath of Luffy’s assault on the Tenryuubito, both Kidd and Law have incurred the same wrath above their heads. It seems like the four supernovae that Kizaru demolished have just lucked out. Now that Sentoumaru has straightened out Kizaru’s priorities, taking in bounty heads in his path is of far lesser importance than dealing vengeance for the Tenryuubito attack. However, there is a good chance that the pacifista will be left there by Kizaru to take the beaten pirates into custody. Their fates will be uncertain for now, but I have faith that their roles in this arc are not yet over.

Still Going

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his teeth must be damn hard to stop that laser

The story now turns to the Strawhats, who are still in a battle with the pacifista. It seems that Zoro is succumbing to his injuries from the deal he made with the real Kuma back on Thriller Bark. Nonetheless, the Strawhats continue their offensive as best they can. This is clearly a different one than the one from 509. This one lacks a tear in his shirt that the first one got from the final blow by the Strawhats. Also, Sanji refers to the one met next chapter as the third one, meaning there were two before it. Anyway, the weaker members of the team are now making an effort and using quite a bit of teamwork to attack and protect each other from counterattacks. Eventually, Usopp fires some shots to save Brooke and one of them enters the pacifista’s mouth. Chopper takes notice that this is the first time the enemy has really seemed injured. From this, Franky is able to determine that the opponent is a human modified with robotic parts rather than simply a fully mechanized person. As long as he has a human base, rendering that part unconscious should stop the whole cyborg being. The blast in his mouth didn’t seem to be enough though and he quickly regains his composure. After attempting to shoot a laser from his mouth at Nami, Robin saves her by slamming the pacifista’s mouth shut, thus containing the blast. Once again, this seems to have actually affected him. However, rather than lose consciousness, he simply gets pissed and starts rampaging with his lasers. Once again, it falls to the monster trio to finish him off. As Zoro regains his fighting strength, he tells Sanji to send the cyborg over to him. Here we see the first reappearance of Zoro’s Ashura in all its glory as he cuts the bastard with nine blades. To finish off the combo, Luffy slams the pacifista down with a Gigant Rifle, which seems to finally finish the fight for good.

511: Sentoumaru and his Broadaxe

Recovery

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I concur with them. rest good

The pacifista is finally beaten and the Strawhats sit down to rest up a bit. They use the opportunity to analyze the situation a bit. Since Franky is a cyborg himself, he has the most insight on the subject of who their enemy was. He suggests that the human at the core of this cyborg could have been a twin or someone resembling Kuma. However, this analysis is flawed since he himself went through a dramatic change in appearance due to his cyborg transformation so it is not out of the question that the original appearance of this individual could have been remarkably different. Franky does make a significant point that reinforces previous analysis of Drake’s thoughts though. He mentions that he can’t imagine creating a fully artificial human. This in combination with Drake’s thoughts seems like a clear foreshadowing that Vegapunk’s ultimate desire is to create a fully robotic human. In creating his pacifista, he likely tries to modify them more and more to replace as much living tissue as he can with robotics. However, there are some aspects of a human fighter that are still seemingly impossible to replicate in a robot and thus make it fail. This also likely accounts for the lack of speech skills exhibited by all the pacifista we have seen. So far, they simply say the name of the bouty head they run into and then start attacking. Vegapunk has likely altered their brains to reduce free thinking and support only the targeting and attacking of registered bounty heads. Following Franky’s analysis, Sanji approaches the body of the pacifista and notices a tattoo saying PX-4, which turns out to be an identification number for the pacifista. This means there are at least four of these guys and likely more.

Replacements

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he's much rounder than i thought he'd be

Before the Strawhats can truly rest, they are interrupted by Sentoumaru and another pacifista. Sentoumaru is revealed to be quite a fat man though still dwarfed in height by the cyborg following him. He is titled as being Vegapunk’s bodyguard, which means that he is responsible for all the pacifista running around. I expect that he was probably taking Vegapunk’s latest model out for a test run. Since the Shabondy Archipelago is known to be a gathering spot for powerful rookie pirates, it is ideal for testing a bounty seeking weapon system. It was simply coincidence that this testing happened to coincide with the Tenryuubito assault and Kizaru being deployed. He was clearly there before the commotion started. He seems extremely proud and likes to look down on people. This even extends to Kizaru, who is his superior. In that case, it simply shows that he gets annoyed quite easily and Kizaru’s ADD gets on his nerves. He puts a great deal of confidence in his defensive ability, which he even extends to the ability to maintain secrets. However, like many One Piece characters, he is comically flawed and unintentionally gives up his name while stating that he is too tight lipped to give up said name. In addition to the information he reveals about himself, he also refers to the pacifista behind him as PX-1 and states that the cost of building a pacifista is equal to that of a battleship. The name of PX-1 could either mean that this is the first pacifista besides Kuma or the strongest pacifista besides Kuma. I’m tempted to believe it is likely both. I am guessing that as the series progresses until Hogback is taken down, we will come across stronger and more complete versions of the pacifista.

With the threat of defeat and capture growing more and more serious, Luffy decides to split up the crew and run. He decides that at least the monster trio should split up so that each could defend the others. Nami, Sanji, and Franky head one direction, Zoro, Usopp, and Brooke go a different direction, and Luffy, Robin, and Chopper take a third. It is not to be taken lightly when Luffy decides to run. However, after taking down two full strength pacifista, it is understandable that the crew is a bit weary. Granted, they have fought and won under worse conditions, but at those times, they were fighting for a nakama or ideal. This is simply a battle to avoid capture and thus not worth betting what little strength they have. The plan is to flee for now and meet back up at the Sunny in three days. Unfortunately, their opponents don’t want to allow them this chance of escape and the pacifista intercepts Sanji’s group while Sentoumaru intercepts Luffy’s.

While preventing Luffy from fleeing, Sentoumaru announces that his guard is world class and easily launches him backwards with great force. It is unknown if the tekkai ability is a part of his repertoire, but his techniques do seem to match an iron body style. His defensive abilities likely surpass Lucci’s tekkai but uses it more like Jyabura’s tekkai kenpo. However, he also has a great deal more body mass to harden, allowing him to greatly amplify offensive power as well. Luffy mentions that there is something weird about his techniques. While the initial thought could be that it affects the body internally like the impact dial or Lucci’s rokuougan, the fact that Lucci didn’t recognize it as such damage implies something else. It is likely something more along the lines of ignoring Luffy’s rubber flesh to effectively use blunt damage. Garp called it a fist of love, but there is likely a technique known to high ranking marines and pirates which allows them to ignore devil fruit defenses. Since the highest power individuals are seemingly on par or greater than most loggias, this is very possible. Sentoumaru’s use of it could be Oda introducing this ability for the first time as a weapon against the Strawhats though we have seen it in more comical application before. If this is the case, I can easily see Luffy grasping the basics of it from fighting Sentoumaru and then incorporating it like he did with Bleuno’s soru. This would give him a way to level the playing field with loggias and thus knock them down from their perceived invincible status. There are still a lot more arcs to go through and since logias can’t be the opponent every time, Oda needs to change the definition of devil fruit power from the quality of the fruit to the user’s skill in applying it.

As Luffy looks up from his latest blow, he sees Zoro pinned under Kizaru’s foot. After hearing Sentoumaru address the admiral, Robin understands immediately the danger the crew is in and warns the others. Zoro’s current state can be mostly attributed to going all out in the previous fight while still bearing wounds from his encounter with Kuma. Though his inability to damage Kizaru due to the logia devil fruit would eventually lead to his defeat, his current state only took one laser blast to take him down. Kizaru acknowledges this but coldly states that he’ll put the swordsman out of his misery. Under normal circumstances, protocol would have likely been to take Zoro into custody for imprisonment and eventual execution. However, the crime of assaulting a Tenryuubito calls for immediate retribution as it is an act of vengeance more than anything else. As the other Strawhats attempt to save Zoro while Kizaru charges up a laser blast from his foot, he officially states that he has the logia powers of the pika pika no mi. Even as Robin attempts to pull Zoro out of the way, he slams his remaining foot on Zoro’s back to pin him down. All seems hopeless but at the last minute, Rayleigh appears and kicks Kizaru’s foot away to deflect the blast. I’ll talk about Rayleigh in the next chapter since the appearance is covered more there.

512: Zoro Lost

Light vs. Dark

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this could lead to massive destruction

As stated before, the one who comes to the aid of the Strawhats is Rayleigh. As two legends in their own rights, the two converse rather than get right down to blows. Kizaru mentions that rumors existed of Rayleigh being on Shabondy but these hadn’t been confirmed to the government until now. This could lead to some issues with Garp later on since he had covered up information of Rayleigh’s existence there. This could have been anything from a promise and trust between the two made decades ago or something as simple as Garp realizing that Rayleigh was no threat in retirement and should be left alone. Either way, I expect Garp to maintain a presence later in the arc in a subplot involving Rayleigh. In a more pressing issue, Rayleigh’s presence here means he is not working on coating the Sunny as he said he would do. Even though he came to save the Strawhats from Kizaru, if the ship is not coated, the pirates are stranded on the island anyway to be picked off. Being that Kizaru is an admiral, I don’t think even Rayleigh would be capable of simply shaking this opponent off and returning to coat the ship. The most likely scenario I can imagine is that Rayleigh will fight Kizaru to a standstill and then allow Kizaru to take him into custody. Since Kizaru is the only individual powerful enough to prevent Rayleigh’s escape during transfer to Mariejoa or Impel Down, this would mean the admiral would need to leave Shabondy for a while in order to handle the incarceration, giving the Strawhats time to regain their strength with only the pacifista and Sentoumaru as enemies until Kizaru returns. As for the coating, I’m guessing that he is having Shakkie, Caimie, and Hachi handle it after leaving instructions on how it is done. Also, by being incarcerated, it gives the possibility of Rayleigh and Garp crossing paths, which would be an ideal opportunity for some reflection into the history of their relationships with each other and Roger.

Flight

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again with the running

Luffy decides to not let Rayleigh’s sacrifice go in vain and tells his crew to grab Zoro and continue fleeing. As Luffy says, in their current condition, they are in no shape to fight their current opponents. If they were in full fighting form, they would likely be strong enough to handle Sentoumaru and the pacifista at least. The reason they used up so much energy in fighting the previous two pacifista was because they didn’t immediately realize the details of its composition and were forced to simply bash against its hard metal skin. Now that they have some experience facing them, they could likely take it out much more easily by fighting smart. As for Sentoumaru, Luffy could probably fight him evenly or win at full strength with use of gears, but he is to weary to use such exhaustive abilities at the moment. As a last effort to aid escape, Franky fires a coup de vent at the pacifista to launch it away from them. Though he succeeded in this, it depleted his cola reserves as seen by his limping hair. In order to return to full strength, he’ll need to find some cola to recharge. Since finding a place to get cola while remaining hidden is a difficult task, I’m guessing that the Strawhats will be able to avoid capture at least through the night so that they can rest and Franky can refuel under cover of darkness. Though I can’t really be sure that they will be able to last the full three days, I’ll at least say that they’ll be safe overnight.

Matching Blows

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Rayleigh is the shit

As the Strawhats escape, Kizaru prepares his Yata no Kagami technique to travel through a reflected beam of light and arrive at his opponents’ location. However, Rayleigh manages to cut the light with a sword before Kizaru can travel through it. Kizaru then forms a sword of light, Ama no Murakumo, that like his Yata no Kagami is based on the sacred items of Japan involved in the legend of Amaterasu and is better known as the Kusanagi sword. We can most likely expect a third technique called Yasakani no magatama after the third item of the sacred set. With this blade of light, Kizaru crosses swords with Rayleigh, who seems to be capable of completely ignoring the logia defenses of Kizaru’s ability. Since people like Whitebeard, Shanks, and Sengoku have been determined as the strongest yet to our knowledge do not even have devil fruit powers, it is only natural that they are able to somehow beat logia enemies. As I stated earlier, there is likely some way to counteract the logia defense of elemental dispersal outside of simply applying the element’s weakness as Luffy did with Crocodile and Enel. I believe that the ability is born out of a person’s strength and willpower since we have seen examples of this from only the top tier such as Rayleigh and Mihawk (has the power to cut the elements). At the beginning of this arc, we saw evidence that Luffy had innately gained the ability to crush enemies with willpower like Shanks and Rayleigh could. Though impressive by itself, its main purpose was as a foreshadowing of Luffy gaining these top tier powers such as devil fruit defense cancellation. The fact that Rayleigh is in this arc sacrificing himself in some way to help the Strawhats move on is a way of him passing the torch to Luffy and would fit with Luffy obtaining such abilities.

Crushed

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not looking good

Since Rayleigh proves more than capable of preventing Kizaru from attacking the Strawhats, the PX1 pacifista is sent instead. Since Zoro is already on the brink of death, PX1’s orders are to take him out first. We even get a small frame detailing that the pacifista modifications even include a crosshair target screen in their eyes in order to quite literally track bounty head pirates. Since Zoro’s group is now composed of Brooke and Usopp guarding a helpless Zoro and Sanji’s group now has no pursuer, the Strawhat cook decides to go and try to save his nakama from the killer cyborg. Within Zoro’s group, Zoro asks Usopp to let him fight but the offer is flatly refused due to his current condition. Brooke takes up the task despite the hopelessness and is quickly taken down. At this point, Sanji arrives and succeeds in slowing the pacifista down but at the cost of heavy backlash to his own leg from kicking the metal body with weary muscles. PX1 quickly recovers and aims a laser blast directly at Sanji. Though the beam missed dealing a severe blow to him, Sanji joins the ranks of those too weary to keep fighting. Over in Luffy’s battle with Sentoumaru, he continues to sustain damage from the fat man’s palm thrusts. He lacks the energy to surpass his opponent in speed or power and with his rubber body seemingly useless, he is heavily on the losing side. Eventually, the two opponents reduce the number of fighting crew members to merely two.

Chopper’s Rage

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bwahahaha! death and destruction await

As Sentoumaru and PX1 rip through the Strawhat crew one by one, Chopper is forced to watch until only he and Robin are left. In desperation, he resorts to his most terrifying ability in his repertoire. For the first time since Enies Lobby, we bear witness to Chopper’s monster point. Since this technique is at least if not more dangerous to his health than Luffy’s gears, this is a last ditch effort meant to sacrifice his own safety for the power to defeat his enemies and offer his nakama the hope of survival. The other flaw is that in the form, he has no comprehension of friend or foe, so he could just as easily start attacking his allies along with his enemies. Normally, this would not be a technique Chopper would even consider with his friends on the battlefield as potential casualties, but this case is unique in two ways. First of all, in the current state, the crew will be killed by these powerful enemies and so without presenting a fighting strength to surpass these two, the deaths of the Strawhats are inevitable. Secondly, he has Robin to back him up and act to prevent their nakama from getting hurt.

Savior of Sorts

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he giveth and he taketh away

As Chopper starts his rampage against Sentoumaru, PX1 gets back up and gets ready to start an assault on the Strawhats currently closest to him, of which Usopp is the only one still able to stand. However, the pacifista is ordered to stop by another Kuma, who Zoro recognizes to be the real one. In the face of the Shichibukai that showed mercy on Thriller Bark, Zoro finds the strength to stand and exchange a few words. Kuma then asks Zoro the trademark question of where he would want to go on a trip before making the Strawhat swordsman disappear just like Perona before him. This is not goodbye to Zoro and I’m pretty sure that he will return by the end or at least the wrap up of the arc, but he will be gone for quite a while before we get to see him again. Since he’ll need to rejoin the Strawhat crew, he can’t have been transported far. On one hand, I’m hesitant to believe that Kuma sent him to Mariejoa. From what I read into Kuma’s personality, he would use this as a test of character for people he thinks need it so that they can come to a personal realization like the one he had when he turned from the tyrannical pirate into the merciful Shichibukai. In that case, Zoro would be sent somewhere of personal significance where he can gain perspective. On the other hand, if Kuma did send him to Mariejoa, he would not only be very close to his crew but would also be in direct contact with friends who could help him gain some perspective. These include Coby, Helmeppo, Garp to an extent, and if things pan out as I predict them to, Rayleigh as well. That last person would be the most critical person since it would give them an opportunity to bond as first mates and he could receive some valuable life lessons from his predecessor. Outside of what happens to Zoro, the Strawhat crew without him also becomes an issue. Most likely, Kuma will give some assurance in the next chapter that Zoro is safe somewhere. He could care less at the moment about the order to kill the Strawhats and so his pacifism will mark the end of this fight and he’ll be the reason for allowing the remaining Strawhats to flee. Unlike when Robin was taken, there is a degree of trustworthiness in Kuma that will allow us and the Strawhats to remain somewhat at ease and trust Zoro to handle himself until they have more information to go on. This will not unravel into an arc to save Zoro. All this means is that Zoro must walk a different path than his nakama for now and come out of a more personal struggle than the brink of death duels he has faced so many times in the Strawhat crew.

Overall

A few great chapters as always. The two things that stick out most are Rayleigh’s ability to negate logia defense and Zoro’s disappearance. The first issue is something I have wanted to see for a long time. I’ve known that the highest ranks had logia subordinates and assumed that they could negate the elemental dispersal defense but now we have proof and I love it. Os for the second issue, Oda really caught us off guard with this one. An arc without Zoro among the Strawhats feels weird, but in the long run, I think it could work beautifully from a plot development perspective. I really can’t wait to see where Oda takes these ideas.

neomaster121

August 30, 2008, 08:59 AM

Your back

i've missed ur reviews soo much

i haven't started reading wanted to get the first post ^__^

welcome back

Edit

Well i read your review and as always its a great read
but i do have to disagree with the number of px luffy crew faced befor Px1
i don't think its a second one simular to when Zoro cut kuma's shirt back on tb the next pages after the shirt was back to normal i believe they only beat 1 px. Also if they beat 2 wouldn't sen talk about the second px they beat instead of only mentioning px 4

Also i think luffy wouldn't beat sen so easily at full power, this guy has yet to use his axe and he has also shown abilities able to repel luffy, if so even with gears sen should be able to deflect luffy's attacks. sen being vegapunks body guard to lazy to write the whole name out lol

I am happy that theres a new way of fight logia which don't involve df or seastones
and i agree that Zoro could have been sent to mariejoa but for me i still believe we maybe seeing a bit more Zoro silver interaction since the two are first mates to pirate king and future pirate king n swordsmen

but as always good review

Raysen_ht

August 30, 2008, 10:05 AM

Welcome back!! What can i say... AMAZING review as Allways!!!

Do you think that some of the SN might get to the NW? cuzz as things are right now, they might all be caught! I want them to continue... but i cant see how

About the SH beating 2 Pacifistas.. i dont think thats right, imo the shirt thing was just a drawing mistake, and when Sanji says 3rd, he meant the real Kuma in TB, the first Pacifista they defeated and now PX1

On a different subject, dont you think that Reylegh using Haki to beat the power of Logia is too predictable for Oda? I agree that its the most plauseble explanation, but im still expecting Oda to come up with another *mind blowing* way to negate logia powers

I had a crazy idea... do you think Kuma might have send Zoro to Mihawk?!!? I know is insane, but that would be the place Zoro would choose to be if he could imo...
and that might gives us a chance to see the WB x Shishi fight (which i want to see so bad!!)

shoe

August 30, 2008, 02:31 PM

I concur on the strawhats only fighting 1 pacifista, given that here (http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/511/03/) it clearly shows the rip in the shirt from 509, and that they talk using singular words like "he" and "it" instead of plurals. so it was most likely that in 510 it was an art mistake. plus oda gave no indication that there was a second one, which you would think he would have, given how thorough oda usually is.

regarding the number of pacifistas, Oda leaves it somewhat ambiguous. there is even probably more evidence for your view of it than mine. i chose to go with it being different because it nails in the idea that though these pacifista are strong, the real threat is that there are multiple units

regarding Luffy and Sentoumaru, that might have been a bit of an exageration on my part. what i meant to convay is that if Luffy was fighting at full strength, he'd be able to fight more efficiently and make the battle a rough equivalent (though overall tougher) of the Bleuno fight. i think he'd win but i didn't mean to convey that Luffy would win easily

i agree on more Zoro-Silver interaction though we don't know in what capacity we will get that. either way i think that is not an immediate concern but more something we'll see down the road since i believe Zoro will be leaving the story for a while

@Raysen_ht - yes i do believe some if not all of the supernova will make it to the New World. i can't see how yet since as you said, it looks like they'll all be captured, but i do have faith that they will make it

regarding the pacifista, as i already said, it could go either way depending on how you look at the evidence

as for Rayleigh's ability to cut Logia, you point is very valid. with Oda, his unpredictability is a huge factor. all we can do is make our best guesses with the evidence given to us. with the current setup i see for the possibility of Luffy learning this ability, Haki seems the most likely lead stepping stone to this ability

i don't think the idea is crazy at all. wherever Zoro was sent, it will be a place where Zoro can gain some perspective on his life. since his life's goal is to beat Mihawk and be the greatest swordsman, having the opportunity to talk with him would go far for this purpose. Zoro is in no shape to duel Mihawk now and the Shichibukai won't accept a fight with such a wounded man, so there is no threat to Zoro losing a duel again but a chat would be great for rekindling his spirit anew and provide some great character development

@shoe - meh. that tear could have also come from Brooke's attack HERE (http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/510/12/), which would make it different than the one in 509. i still seem to be in a clear minority on my belief, but i see it as more likely given that the real threat of the pacifistas is that there are more than one as they say after knocking down the one in 509

shoe

August 30, 2008, 03:17 PM

@shoe - meh. that tear could have also come from Brooke's attack HERE (http://www.onemanga.com/One_Piece/510/12/), which would make it different than the one in 509. i still seem to be in a clear minority on my belief, but i see it as more likely given that the real threat of the pacifistas is that there are more than one as they say after knocking down the one in 509
it could have, but what are the odds that brooks attack, which didn't do anything (and given that the tear didn't show up for the rest of the chapter) makes a tear exactly like the one at the end of 509

also, the power of the pacifistas is that there's more than one of them, assuming that the strawhats only fought one, it would only make sense that multiples are a massive threat

neomaster121

August 30, 2008, 06:50 PM

sahugani
i hope u don't mind if i continue to write reviews
i might not keep them as regularly as u but on chapters which have me thinking up many things that i'd like to share

ANBU4U

August 30, 2008, 07:28 PM

Not to beat a dead horse, but it seems pretty clear that the SH's only fought 1 Pacifista...otherwise why only have sentomaru address PX-4 when he arrived....the strawhats certainly don't seem to have moved form the initial battle location, so wheres the other downed cyborg?

I bring up the issue because I disagree on the basis of your opinion...you say that its because you think 2 Kuma's emphasise the importance of their being multiple units..........and while I agree, I think the notion that they're are multiple units strong enough the push the entire crew to the brink by themselves is the most important message to pick out.

Oda's made it very clear how dangerous these pacifista are, none of the strawhats would have been able to take that thing alone, and perhaps not as lesser teams either.

Its Oda way of Beating the New World into our heads.

Regarding Sentomaru......I have no evidence of course, but I wouldn't presume he can be beaten by Luffy as of yet, I see him being at or around Lucci's level....which is pretty much a wash when Luffys at full strength.

sahugani

August 30, 2008, 09:32 PM

@shoe - ok, obviously i find the number ambiguous while you guys don't. its a minor detail so lets just stop trying to convince each other

@neomaster121 - of course i have no issue with you continuing your reviews here. reviewers are always welcome to share their own views on the chapters and it would be great to increase the number of them on the site

@ANBU4U - as i said before, i see it as still ambiguous regarding the pacifista and accept that you guys are more than likely right while i am hanging on the uncertain chance. this being the case, i'd like to get away from the number discussion

as for the point of the pacifista and their strength, i take a different view. taking into account what has been hinted about Vegapunk, as the story progresses, we will meet more complete versions of the cyborgs. this being the case, by the end of this arc, the Strawhats will have to prove themselves capable of taking one of these guys down with either significantly less effort or significantly less manpower. this would mean finding a way to take one out as a team in one or two combo attacks or having this PX1 be the final fight for one or two Strawhats that manage to take him down. this way they prove that they are greater than this relatively simple version and are ready to enter the New World

as for Sentoumaru, you are correct. we don't really have enough evidence to base anything concrete on for a matchup. we can speculate all we want though. my gut is in agreement with yours though regarding him being around Lucci in power

True Blade

August 30, 2008, 10:35 PM

At first I might have assumed that Sentoumaru had seastone integrated into his person. Being that he IS Vegapunk's assistant, it wouldn't be too far off. But the fact that so many high powered individuals have no devil fruit of note makes me lean more towards your idea. Reality seems to bend a little for individuals of extreme willpower and spirit in the One Piece world... especially those with strong senses of what's right.
When you mentioned mist and fog as a means of stopping Kizaru's light ability, for some reason Smoker came to mind. But I think that's just me hoping. =(
I'm not sure if Rayleigh simply leaving instruction would be enough to get the Strawhat's ship coated. If he's not coating it himself, there's no way it will be done in 3 days. It'll be interesting to see how whether Oda continues the idea of the Strawhat's escaping to Fishmen Isle, or whether we're gonna get a calm before they head down there.
As for Zoro... WHYYYYY. Just kidding, I'm excited to see Zoro get his focus arc. After all, his intro arc was... well not really an arc. And every other person who joined the Strawhats either had it when they joined, or shortly after.

ninjaa

August 30, 2008, 10:55 PM

Hey! Welcome back! I have a few things I wanted to point about about your analysis, first thing being Rayleigh's coating job. I think that he didn't leave someone else to do the coating for him, and instead the coating is something that you can do quickly, but takes a long time to dry. He probably applied the coating to the ship before leaving, because like its been said before it takes skill to do the coating job, and he wouldn't risk the lives of Luffy and his crew with a coating job done by some amateurs. The second thing I wanted to point out is that I think Sentomaru is much stronger than you're giving him credit for. His defense is world-class, and he also is the bodyguard of Dr. Vegapunk, one of the Marines most important resources. Also, like Chopper said when Luffy got hit with the palm thrusts, his attacks shouldn't be doing much damage to Luffy since it is a straight blunt attack on Luffy's rubber body. When Moria attacked Luffy with all his souls, he didn't do much damage. What I'm implying is that Sentomaru, like Rayleigh, has a way to naturally negate devil fruit defenses. Just throwing that out there!

shoe

August 31, 2008, 11:50 AM

for some reason Smoker came to mind. But I think that's just me hoping. =(
I'm not sure if Rayleigh simply leaving instruction would be enough to get the Strawhat's ship coated. If he's not coating it himself, there's no way it will be done in 3 days. It'll be interesting to see how whether Oda continues the idea of the Strawhat's escaping to Fishmen Isle, or whether we're gonna get a calm before they head down there.

i <3 smoker

since we don't really know how the coating works, it could be that while it takes relatively little time for a skilled coater to apply it, it still takes three days to dry or set or what have you, so rayleigh might have already finished the actual coating and now they all just need to wait for it to finish

Josl

August 31, 2008, 02:21 PM

First I d like to say I read and enjoy your Rewies and I value your opinion. There is something on my mind where I want to hear your Opinion
If there is a way to negate devil fruits(other than Seastone) like for example Haki WHY would Blackbeard spent so many years searching the yami yami fruit. I mean BB fought Shanks equally so he should be able to use Haki
What do you think?

neomaster121

August 31, 2008, 03:52 PM

First I d like to say I read and enjoy your Rewies and I value your opinion. There is something on my mind where I want to hear your Opinion
If there is a way to negate devil fruits(other than Seastone) like for example Haki WHY would Blackbeard spent so many years searching the yami yami fruit. I mean BB fought Shanks equally so he should be able to use Haki
What do you think?

bb might not have been able to use haki

also his fruit doesn't stop him from getting hit, if i remember even normal attacks would hit bb so haki attacks nothing

so it must be for the effects of the fruit

and the fruit is quite powerful in terms of effects

Akagami.Shanks

August 31, 2008, 04:57 PM

Great review as always sahugani!
I like the way you go into details we don't usually see or even think of, like Kizaru's personality, or that the power of nullifying DF was already introduced but in different form.
Before seeing Blackbeard ability, I always taught that one day SH would learn how to fight logia users equally without the need of finding an element to use like water with Crocodile and just pure coincidence in the case of Enel. So once I saw the Yami Yami no mi fruit, I kind of lost hope; for the simple reason that Blackbeard is as strong as Shanks, why would he get into all the trouble to get that devil fruit. I mean if the strong ppl of OP world can nullify the logia powers, BB can be defeated by WB or one of his top fighters. So the only conclusion I could come up with, is that not everyone is able to use that power or control it. That's why BB needed desperately that Devil fruit. what do you think about that Sahugani?

sahugani

September 01, 2008, 01:27 AM

@True Blade - Given my assumptions on the limitations of the light logia, Kizaru vs Smoker would be a fight i really want to see. Smoker is on his way to eventually replacing one of the admirals, so we might actually get to see that at some point

as for Rayleigh and the coating, his appearance here really does throw a wrench in the assumed timeframe. we'll need to see how Rayleigh continues before we can really guess as to the condition of the Sunny

on the last point regarding Zoro, i couldn't agree more. most of his character growth in the series has revolved around his swordsmanship due to the nature of his dream. this is a great opportunity for him to develop as a person

ninjaa - for the Rayleigh issue, i doubt this is the case. in any coating or painting job, quality comes from applying multiple coats over an extended time, so applying only a single coat is not likely.

as for Sentoumaru, we really don't have enough to make a case either way in regards to his strength. at this point it is really all guesswork. being that he does have such a high rank, he is likely top tier in regards to his defensive powers. however, i doubt his reaction time is good enough to match Luffy's gear 2 and we have yet to see how well his defenses would do against gear 3. as for Sentoumaru's attacks, i state in the review that i think the same way about DF negation.

@shoe - true true. Smoker is awesome. as for the coating stuff, i already stated my thoughts in replying to True Blade

#Josl - good question. there is a difference between the technique and the yami yami no mi. from what i can tell, the technique simply allows the person to ignore any defenses offered by DF abilities and attack them as if they were normal. it simply negates defense in the area of attack but still allows the opponent to access his abilities for offense. an example of this is Kizaru not being able to take his light form because Rayleigh can cut the light body as if it was human. however, he can still apply his light ability to create a sword to use offensively. the yami yami no mi works differently. as long as Blackbeard is touching the opponent, the person's DF abilities are completely dismissed in both offensive and defensive forms. also, the gravity's power allows him to pull the person's real body (regardless of DF powers) into grasping range. we'll likely get a better description of both later on, but this is what i can grasp so far

@neomaster121 - i'm inclined to believe that he could use it before but desired the DF because it allows him to make the enemy helpless before delivering each blow rather than merely leveling the playing field. i base this thought on the analysis of the technique differences in my previous response

@Akagami Shanks - its certainly a possibility that is that case, but as i said, i'm inclined to believe that Blackbeard could use the technique but instead chose to upgrade this ability through use of the yami yami no mi. i'm also guessing that the powers of the fruit are deeper than was revealed in the Ace fight. its offensive abilities are likely on par with the other logias even outside of the DF cancellation. most logias are protected at close range by their elemental nature and are adept at fighting at long range. Blackbeard's ability forces others to be at his mercy in a close range fight since he is at least on par with Shanks in close combat. his ability capitalizes on his fighting prowess and does nothing for his defense. since the DF negation technique of the strong willed only negates DF defenses, it is not applicable to a DF that offers no defense, making Blackbeard a major threat to the superpowers

noonethere

September 04, 2008, 06:52 AM

Thanks for the review.

Franky does make a significant point that reinforces previous analysis of Drake’s thoughts though. He mentions that he can’t imagine creating a fully artificial human. This in combination with Drake’s thoughts seems like a clear foreshadowing that Vegapunk’s ultimate desire is to create a fully robotic human. In creating his pacifista, he likely tries to modify them more and more to replace as much living tissue as he can with robotics. However, there are some aspects of a human fighter that are still seemingly impossible to replicate in a robot and thus make it fail. This also likely accounts for the lack of speech skills exhibited by all the pacifista we have seen. So far, they simply say the name of the bouty head they run into and then start attacking. Vegapunk has likely altered their brains to reduce free thinking and support only the targeting and attacking of registered bounty heads.

I was thinking that the other way round was also possible i.e. instead of creating a fully robotic human, his dream might be to create a complete human being.I am saying this because Drake was surprised to see the Kuma clone bleed (http://read.mangashare.com/One-Piece/chapter-509/page013.html) despite the fact that he was previously familiar with the pacifista. This would mean that the previous model did not bleed and hence had less human parts compared to the ones on SA. This would also explain why he would investigate zoan DF and use them to animate non-living things.
Also I was wondering where he got the human parts from:do they come from slaves (this would make him as bad as Hogback) or do they come from dead people? Maybe Vegapunk's aim is to revive someone close to him and unlike Hogback, he intends to revive that person with its personality intact(in which case Brooke's DF might interest him a lot).What do you think of this?:amuse

Helltroll

September 06, 2008, 06:07 AM

Good to see you back. Lot's of nice points as usual but I'm really excited what you will predict in your next review because the newest developments are kinda...unpredicted^^

Edit: Oh yeah...there was a sentence in your review where you talked about the Pacifistas and mentioned that there will more of them until Hogback got taken down. Maybe it's just me but I think you mean Vegapunk ;)